Penny Candy
by Unoriginality
Summary: Bucky had a horrible joke he'd played on Steve since they were young, and as grown adults, it was no different. (Spoilers for The Winter Soldier.)


Bucky had been studying wikipedia, per Steve's suggestion, when he heard the door to the apartment open and shut. He paused, listening carefully for any sign that it was someone other than Steve who'd come in.

"Bucky!"

It was Steve.

Bucky relaxed, then went back to the laptop. "What?" he called back, attention on both wiki and on Steve.

"Guess what I found?"

"A date?"

"Funny, Bucky. I found something you might recognize from when we were kids." He must've gone to the kitchen, Bucky decided, noticing the change in the sound of Steve's footsteps, from muted carpet to sharp linoleum.

"What is it?"

"Get your butt off the couch and come look."

Bucky frowned, then set the laptop down on the coffee table. Steve could be a frustrating creature sometimes, trying to surprise Bucky and cheer him up. Bucky didn't mind too much, he knew Steve was just trying to help him, but with the Winter Soldier looking just over Bucky's shoulder, he sometimes wished Steve would just step back and let him deal on his own.

But dealing on his own hadn't helped before, that was why he came to Steve in the first place. So Bucky attempted to take it in stride.

He wandered into the kitchen, somewhat grumpy that his work had been disturbed. "All right, I'm here. What do you have and why are you interrupting me for it?" Steve was all smiles as he pointed to a bag of candy on the counter. Bucky picked up the bag, studying it, then raised one eyebrow in surprise. "Lifesavers. They still make these?"

"Yup. They never stopped. Added a lot of specialty flavors, but those are the originals."

Bucky stared at the bag. He'd been a young adolescent when Lifesavers were invented, and he'd take Steve down to the penny candy store in their neighborhood to buy rolls of them. "Where'd you find these?"

"The gas station when I stopped to fuel up my bike," Steve said. "Feel free to help yourself, I'll be right back." Steve left the room, which left Bucky alone with the candy.

Hoping he had enough time to do what he used to do to poor Steve when they were kids, Bucky grabbed a ziplock bag and dug into the candy rolls, stealing every single cherry-flavored piece and dumping them into the ziplock bag.

Leaving the rolls completely torn apart and vandalized, he went back into the living room, hiding the bag behind him as he took a seat on the couch and returned to the laptop.

Steve passed Bucky on his way back to the kitchen from the bathroom. Bucky spared him a glance, then went back to the computer as if nothing were wrong.

Seconds later, he heard Steve's indignant squawk, followed quickly by "Bucky, what did you do to the candy, you lunatic?!"

Bucky choked down laughter, relying on years of never smiling to hide it as he pretended to read. "I helped myself to some candy. You said I could."

"You picked out all the red ones again!" Steve stormed into the living room, and held out his hand. "Give them back."

"I have nothing on me, Steve. It was a ghost. I saw him float by." Bucky managed to say this all with a straight face.

"The only ghost around here is you," Steve growled. "Hand 'em over."

Bucky set the laptop down again and held up his hands. "I have nothing on me," he said again.

"Then where did you hide them? You didn't have ithat/i much time." Steve looked a little annoyed. Although that might've been an understatement. "You did this when we were kids, you're not doing this now. You're too old for that."

"At least I didn't leave you anything but the yellow and green ones," Bucky replied, still not surrendering the cherry-flavored candy.

"I'm not going to pretend to be grateful to let you get away with stealing the red candy," Steve said. "Now share 'em or I'm never getting you candy again, you freeloader."

Bucky scowled. It wasn't like he liked having no job, unable to get one with the whole being dead and a former assassin that nobody would like if they ever knew. "Fine, here's your dumb candy," he said, reaching behind him and holding out the ziplock bag for Steve to take.

Steve hesitated. "You were sitting on them."

"Where else was I gonna hide them on such short notice?"

Steve's expression hovered somewhere between disgust and very, very aggravated. "Forget it, you can keep them," he said.

This time, Bucky did laugh. "Wuss."

"Excuse me for not wanting to eat something that touched your back side," Steve grumbled, heading back to the kitchen

"They're in a bag!" Bucky protested. "It's not like I left them exposed!"

"Still don't want them. You win this time, Bucky."

Well, his loss. Bucky opened the bag and popped a candy in his mouth, then went back to the laptop, the bag with the candies resting against his hip on the couch.


End file.
